Batman

Here is a story for all you story lovers. I was taking a mid-day nap after staying up far too late the night before when I was woken up by the frantic ringing of my doorbell.

Now usually, the only person who rings my doorbell is my neighbor and good friend Yukari, so I got up and answered the door. This sounds a lot easier than it was because the summer weather is rather hot, and I had taken my pants off before my nap. Actually, to tell the truth, I had taken my pants off the moment I had come inside, and switched on the air conditioner for good measure. Anyway, it was a good minute of solid doorbell ringing before I had found my clothes and put them back on. I wasn’t surprised at all to see Yukari standing there, but I did notice a bit of a wild, panicked, look in her eyes when she said: “Batman! Batman! Apart-o de Batman das-yo!” (I may have misremembered the Japanese bits, but basically she was saying that Batman was in her apartment.)

“I had no idea you were such a fan!” I thought it my head (lacking the ability to say so in Japanese). I really couldn’t understand why she was so excited, but she beckoned me inside, so I went in.

When she handed me a broom, I started to realize that this was not mere excitement over the release of a Japanese translation of the latest Batman movie, but rather an assassination I was to preform.

Looking around the apartment with apprehension, I felt the last bit of excitement drain from me about seeing the new Batman series. I never did see it, but a lot of people had relatively positive things to say about it. I hadn’t bothered watching the one with Mr. Freeze, and looking as cheesy as it did, I didn’t feel compelled to see any more. Besides, the latest retelling of Batman merely underscores the fact that the story is dead, and all we can hope for now is a new version with different actors playing the characters. As if I haven’t had my fill of overly rehearsed kong-fu-esq action scenes. …but I digress.

The room seemed devoid of bats, so I relaxed, and put down the broom. A terrified Yukari peered around from the door, unable to re-enter the apartment. She explained that she thought it was behind the TV, but as I approached that location, she began to get overwhelmed with fear. I stopped, put her in my apartment, and then returned to the task at hand.

As I peered around the back of the TV I was not greeted by a bat in the face, as you might be guessing, since I had left my weapon on the floor. Instead, there was the tiniest little bat, clearly at wit’s end, clinging to a laptop bag. I couldn’t decide who was more terrified, the bat or Yukari. I gently picked up the laptop bag, carried it outside, and placed it somewhere where the bat could fly away if it wanted to. Then I put Yukari back in her apartment, after snaping a photo with her iPhone to commemorate the experience.

The bat wasn’t on the laptop bag when I returned later that evening, so I assume that it flew off and is happily terrorizing the neighborhood bugs to this day.

I can only assume that the bat thought it had found a nice cool cave to live in when it entered Yukari’s open window.

I’ll leave you with this photo: